Interview with Ben Fordham, 2GB
26 January 2021
Ben Fordham: Prime minister, happy Australia Day.
Prime Minister: G’day Ben, Happy Australia Day to you and everybody listening.
Fordham: What a fantastic night last night. I loved it.
Prime Minister: It was quite inspirational. I mean, of course, we have the incredible women who were acknowledged in all of those Australians of the year categories. But when you took the field out beyond that, I spent quite a bit of time with them all yesterday and you could not be but humbled by all of their achievements and indeed their humility as well. You had to encourage them to accept the honour and accept the acknowledgement and an amazing group of people.
Fordham: One of my favourite parts of last night was the local Australian of the Year, Rosemary Kariuki, she's from New South Wales. We are going to chat to her later on this morning. And she just told a great story, which I just shared about when she arrived to Australia she didn't know anyone in her apartment block, so she thought, well, I'll just put a Christmas card under everyone's door and tell them what unit I live in. And then all of a sudden, tap, tap, tap people were knocking on the door.
Prime Minister: That's exactly right. And she's worked ever since with migrant communities, with refugee communities, just providing that welcome and opening up her arms. And she's got a smile, brighter than the sun too I can tell you, she's got a great sense of humour as well. And she's an incredibly engaging person. But it's just her care and compassion that just shines through.
Fordham: You say Australia is a unique success story. Our nation has had its dark spots as well as its triumphs. But this of all years, we should reflect on what we've achieved. We feel so lucky to live here, don't we?
Prime Minister: We are. And we're, as we've gone through this terrible pandemic, Australia fared better than pretty much any other country. And that's as a result of everybody's contributions, the contributions of Australians just being patient and dealing with, you know, what has been a disruptive and difficult year. They're just getting through that, getting their families through it. But all the incredible health workers, the logistics people, those- even now as we speak, producing our vaccine down there in Melbourne, you know governments have done a great job, you know, at state level, they're doing all this. And we've been pleased to work with them as part of the National Cabinet to do our bit. So everybody's pitched in this year. And that's the nature of Australia. That's really my point. Over this past year, this generation dealing with the pandemic has found the same strength and courage that previous generations have to deal with overcoming the many things we have had to as a nation.
Fordham: You really realise it when you receive email after email from various corners of the globe, as I have this morning, from people who wish they were here for Australia Day, but they are stuck overseas somewhere or they live overseas and they just miss what we've got here back home. And that's a really tough thing for a lot of people who are away from home, including those Aussies who haven't managed to get back here even though they want to be here.
Prime Minister: Well, that's true. And this is my island home as was sung last night. And that is, you know, that is I think it's capturing the sentiment completely. I mean, over 80,000 we've been able to get back since, you know, we had about just over 20,000- about 26,000 that were trying to get home. And that number increased over time, of course. And then we're still we're still working on that and still getting more people back every week. But we've got to keep people healthy got to keep them safe, got to get our economy back on its feet, we're making great progress on all of that.
Fordham: We mentioned some of the dark chapters of our history and the fact that it's not a day of celebration for everyone. What's your message to those Indigenous Australians who feel a heavy heart on a day like today?
Prime Minister: Well, the first is one of recognition and understanding. This has been, I mean one of the greatest overcomers of all of our peoples in this country, has been our First Nations peoples they have had to overcome dispossession and they have had to overcome colonisation. And they are a thriving, surviving community, the oldest, the world's oldest living culture. And I think their story of overcoming is one of, if not the greatest Australian story. And it's one that we can all combine together and acknowledge but whether it's our First Nations people, you know, the convicts or the settlers or the many who have since come, and made us the most successful immigration country in the world today. All of these stories are important. There are there are more than 25 million stories in Australia right now. And we must respect them all, seek to understand them all. And last night, Miriam-Rose from the Northern Territory, she was the Senior Australian of the Year, also amazing of course Grace Tame congratulations to her, strong, vibrant woman who has just overcome an unimaginable things. But Miriam-Rose just talked about coming together in the middle. And and I thought she had a very powerful message last night. And she's an incredibly wise woman.
Fordham: You announced the winners last night, but it's not you who decides on who receives them. But I'm sure you would have been thrilled when you looked down that list and saw Glenn Wheeler's name on it. He's been made an OAM. We'll be catching up with him in about an hour from now. It's a fantastic recognition of his service to broadcasting, but more so to charity, no one does more for charity than Glenn Wheeler.
Prime Minister: And particularly in our community, down in the Shire too I know Glenn does it everywhere, but I was absolutely thrilled when I saw that. We love Glenn and we celebrate with him today and talking about overcoming, you and I have a pretty good idea of how much he's had to overcome and his family since his accident. And he just keeps fighting on every day. And he gives us, you know, the inspiration, I think, to try and do what we do each day. He's just a wonderful, warm human being and good on you, Glenn. One of my disappointments yesterday is we didn't have the usual Australia Day today- I should say. We don't have the usual Australia Day event down there at Cronulla, which I always see Glenn at. And anyway, I'm sure he'll be celebrating with family today.
Fordham: You've now got to call him Glenn Wheeler OAM.
Prime Minister: I'm sure he'll insist on that too.
Fordham: Now something else to celebrate on Australia Day. The vaccine rollout isn't far away?
Prime Minister: Well, yes, we updated on that yesterday. The Therapeutic Goods Administration, led by Professor Skerritt, approved the Pfizer vaccine, the day before yesterday, late that day. And that's been announced. And so we now go through the process of receiving that delivery and rolling it out, the training and workforce issues that we've already been working on those. And so we anticipate that that will start before the end of February and then it'll scale up. So before the end of March, sorry before the end of February and over the next months and the months that follow will continue to ramp up. They'll now work on the TGA approval for the AstraZeneca vaccine. And so the strategy is going ahead as we anticipated, there'll be the odd bumps here and there with production schedules overseas. One of the reasons we chose to produce the vaccine here in Australia, the AstraZeneca vaccine, and we had to work hard to achieve that and pay a bit of a premium for it. It means that our vaccination programme will not be completely hostage to the production schedules of countries overseas, that sovereign capability to produce the vaccine here we made a high priority.
Fordham: What was it like for you last night when you heard the words in the national anthem, ‘we are one and free’?
Prime Minister: Well, it's the first time I've been in a room where that had happened Ben, or at a place. And I've seen it was at the cricket and a few other things. But to be there, it was, it was, it just seemed so right. That was my honest reaction. That's, that's right. That's good. I'm so pleased we made that change. It's a simple change. That's all it is. We've never pretended it being anything more than that. But I was very pleased with it and weren’t they great that choir, they really brought it out very, very beautifully.
Fordham: They were fantastic. Now, speaking of music, you forced me to make a very difficult phone call yesterday.
Prime Minister: Yeah?
Fordham: I’d locked in John Williamson to join me at 7.15 this morning. And I had to call him and say, listen, the prime minister's offered himself up, so I need to bump you up to after 7.30. And he said, well, for ScoMo I'm happy to make an exception.
Prime Minister: Well, that's very kind of John. I’ve met John a few times along the way. And no one sings that anthem better than he does. And I'm sure you'll enjoy having a good chat to him. But it's a day for John Williamson singing, it’s a day for all of these things. I mean, of course, there are many controversial issues that go around things around this day, but today it's a day just to come together just to be thankful for being Australian. And that's what it is, we all are, regardless of what our stories are, our experiences, our differences or disagreements that may happen. Today is not day to focus on that. Today is a day to focus on who we are, where we've got to, where we're going. And the great thing about Australia is, you know, we're always optimistic. Regardless of what the challenges are, we decide to be optimistic. And that's, I think, been key to how we’ve overcome so much as a country and achieved so much. And we'll continue to. This year too Ben, it's going to be a tough one. I can't, I can't pretend that it won't be, but we will come through it the same way we always do, together.
Fordham: Bloody oath. Have a good Australia Day and we'll catch up soon.
Prime Minister: Good on you Ben, all the best.
